The Taxi Home

[hack]

Pretty young woman
with a concrete smile
in a skirt a little too short
for 5 AM
a shade or two too blue
for sunrise
too solemn for church
too early for confession

Furiously intent on a cigarette
the backseat ruffle of currency
one, two, three, four, five

Her nights and her youth
scattering in our wake

[PrinceMyshkin]

the backseat ruffle of currency

(or should it be "rustle"?) blazes out from all that is so cinematically vivid in this poem. There was something ominous foreshadowed in the title - which was then fulfilled.

I think you should lower-case "AM" as I initially read the whole of it as "SAM"

[_Shannon_]

LOve this...but "her wake", "the wake" or "our wake"....

I don't quite understand how we're all implicated. :)

[hack]

LOve this...but "her wake", "the wake" or "our wake"....

I don't quite understand how we're all implicated. :)

The POV is the cab driver, thus "our".
I suppose that we are all implicated,
by what fashion, and to what extent,
is purely personal. Thanks for the read
and comment...peace...

[lallison]

This is the second taxi poem I've read from you. You bring about a good concept, taxi drivers are privy to a lot of interesting people and conversations as part of their work. I thought this was a good poem, very descriptive and evocative. I interpreted this as the woman being a prostitute, on her way home, counting her money in the back seat of a cab. I am fascinated by poems like this this that describe a brief window or scene that says so much. I also thought your capitalization and punctuation, or lack there of (mostly), was perfect for this stream of consciousness piece. If you were to write a whole cab driver series like this, I would definitely read it! A bit like the epitaphs in Spoon River Anthology. You can say a lot about people by what happens in the deceptively not-private back seat of a cab. You bring some very interesting ideas to light. Ever see collateral, taxi driver experiences can almost be said to be in their own genera.

[Bar22do]

Pretty young woman
with a concrete smile
in a skirt a little too short
for 5 AM
a shade or two too blue
for sunrise
too solemn for church
too early for confession

Furiously intent on a cigarette
the backseat ruffle of currency
one, two, three, four, five

Her nights and her youth
scattering in our wake

"Man portable SAMs are carried and launched by a single person. They are sometimes attached to vehicles in order to increase their mobility. SAMs are all around the world and new clients are always available." (extract from SAM definition...) PM must have read right to a certain degree.

This sad 5 am situation is universal as is the dimension your short skirted poem... I love the "ruffle of currency" - and hope it is to pay the taxi driver (and that her "fees" are in notes...).

As "we" barely wake, she's only on her way home...
How many dreams she fed during the night... I bow low to her.
Yet, I guess, she's not so solemn, but for her pose of dignity;
I doubt she would consider confession, not even later, for she was the confessor herself all the night long... she's a goddess.

You can understand from the above how thought- and empathy-involving your outstanding poem is...

Thanks hack

Bar

[Hawkman]

Oh man, I just love that first stanza.

"Pretty young woman
with a concrete smile
in a skirt a little too short
for 5 AM
a shade or two too blue
for sunrise
too solemn for church
too early for confession"

The rest of it is pretty good too!

Live and be well, H

[hillwalker]

Loved this hack - the suggestion of shady dealings and impropriety that might be part of her lifestyle, yet there again might not. The taxi driver is neither judge nor father confessor, which is what I particularly appreciated about the piece.

And for some reason it instantly brought to mind Beth Orton's song 'Central Reservation' about another young girl on her way home after a late late night.

H

[qimissung]

The vividness of your language makes this a delight, as does the language that implies and almost judges, but doesn't quite. My personal favorite line is "furiously intent on a cigarette..." and more power to her, I say. I certainly think she knows best how to live her life.